


Soul Memory

by Velgamidragon



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Attempted Murder, Comfort, Daddy Issues, Dead Parent, F/M, Family, Gen, Hugs, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Mental Instability, Mommy allison, Parent-Child Relationship, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, carwash siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 11:45:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4058794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velgamidragon/pseuds/Velgamidragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmate-identifying marks AU where the marks are key words, or symbols even, that have represented the other person in their relationship through multiple lifetimes. Allison tries to explain the concept of the soulmate marks to her four-year-old son, David, when he asks about the word 'silence' written in a circle on the left side of his chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soul Memory

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write my own version of a soulmate-identifying marks AU. It seemed silly to me that you would just have either your soulmate's name or the first things they say to you written on your wrist or somewhere else on your body because then you would know your soulmate instantly! It seemed equally silly as well as just plain tragically awful that the words would be the last thing your soulmate ever said to you for the exact OPPOSITE reason that you would never know who your soulmate is until they either died, lost their voice, or were never seen again.  
> I wanted a balance of the two where it wasn't instantly obvious as soon as you met them, but neither was it a tragic revelation when you lost them. They figure it out somewhere in the middle after they're already interacting with each other, so the relationship is already decided in this life's iteration whether it's going to be positive or negative before they ever figure out that the other person is their soulmate.

“Mommy? What’s this?” David asked his mother.

Allison had just removed his yellow fruit-stained tank top to throw it in the washer and give her dirty son a bath before bed when he asked the question. The only reason Carolina wasn’t here pestering her right now was because Leonard was keeping her otherwise preoccupied – her baby girl loved her dad so much. She whirled around to stare down at her blonde four-year-old son and figure out what he was referring to. David wasn’t looking up at her, but his eyes were fixed instead on a word engraved on the left side of his chest in a circle. Oh!

Allison smiled and knelt down in front of her youngest child. “It’s your soulmate mark, sweetie,” she said. “Didn’t you ask Daddy about it?”

David puffed up his cheeks in a huff and pouted cutely. It was the freckles. “I did! But Daddy used a huge lot of big words that I don’t get! Caerina said it’s for the person I marry, but I don’t know how I know who that person is because I don’t want to marry the wrong person.”

Allison almost laughed at how serious her son was being. She didn’t, but boy, was it hard! Instead, she sat down all the way and traced the word on David’s chest with her finger. ‘silence’. It had been there since the day he was born, just like the word ‘asshole’ written on the small of her back, the word ‘bitch’ written below Leonard’s collar bones, and the picture of a lockpick in a heart drawn on Carolina’s upper right arm.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, David,” Allison said as she pulled the toddler into her lap. “See, when people are alive, they build very special relationships with certain people. Sometimes these relationships are good, like two people falling deeply in love with each other, and sometimes these relationships are bad, like two mortal enemies. When we die and our bodies disappear, our souls still remember those very important relationships when we are reborn. The soulmate mark that you are born with means that somebody important to your soul in a past life has also been reborn and you will probably meet.”

“But what does ‘silence’ mean?” he asked. “How will I know when I find my soulmate?”

Allison sighed heavily and hugged David closer. “I don’t know pumpkin. The mark describes the other soul’s past relationship to yours. Your soulmate will probably be someone quiet, but it doesn’t tell you if they were a lover, a best friend, a parent, a rival, or an enemy. When I saw my soulmate mark, I thought for sure that it meant my soulmate would be my enemy. When I first met your dad when I was in middle school, I thought for sure that it was him and that he was my soul’s enemy. I had _no_ idea that I would actually fall in love with that prick and have the two most awesome kids ever.”

“B-but how will I know when I find them?”

“Well… I think… you’ll just know, the way I did with your dad. I didn’t know _how_ , but I knew somehow that we were connected. He was the asshole and I was the bitch that our souls were both searching for. If we lived in a world where we didn’t have soulmate marks, I think we’d still be drawn to our soulmates because of the bond we share. Our marks don’t tell us who they _are_ , but they do give us a hint as to who they _were_ and who they _will_ be when we find them. Does that make sense?”

“So… so, my soulmate will be a quiet person. And… my soulmate has a mark on them that talks about me and they’ll know me when they see me?” David said slowly and turned to look up at her with his beautiful blue-tinted gray eyes.

“That’s right, sweetheart,” Allison agreed.

“And I might fall in love with them or I might fight them?”

“Um-hmm.”

“So Caerina was wrong!”

Allison laughed again and ruffled David’s blond hair. “No, not completely wrong. I gave your sister the same talk, so she knows her soulmate might be her enemy too. Carolina has just decided to ignore that part and is completely convinced that her soulmate is someone she’ll fall in love with.”

David snuggled into her. “I want to love my soulmate.”

Allison smiled softly down at him. “So do I, little one. So do I.”

()()()()()

_“So do I, little one. So do I.”_

Washington could still hear her words echoing in his head and he was already crying silently when he woke up the next morning. It’d been so long since he’d last dreamt about his mother. He didn’t have many memories of her. Carolina was eight, but he’d only been four when she was killed in the Insurrectionist bombing strike. Her telling him about the soulmate marks was one of the few memories he actually had of his mom. He felt knuckles brush against the side of his cheek and sharply turned his head around to face the owner of the hand. It was Maine. He was lying on his side and staring back at him with a very concerned frown and soft brown eyes. For all his size and perceived stoicness by the other Freelancers and ship personnel, his face was remarkably expressive when he wanted it to be.

Wash smiled weakly at him. “Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.”

Maine scowled at him. “Don’t,” he grumbled about the apology and his expression shifted back to concerned as he brushed at the tears still trapped at the corners of his eyes.

Wash caught his hand and gripped it tightly. It was his left hand, the one that had Maine’s own soulmate mark written down the inside of his wrist. He gazed fondly down at the word as his hand lovingly stroked across ‘support’. He remembered when he first met Maine, he’d been inexplicably drawn to him and all the other Agents were shocked that Maine not only didn’t throw him through a wall within the first week, but actually _liked_ him.

That should have been his first clue.

They got along great and they worked so _well_ together out in the field. Eventually, Wash started to wonder if Maine was indeed the person his soulmate mark was referring to. Unlike his own mark being hidden (unless he removed his shirt) on his chest, Maine’s was in a much more noticeable place, but he’d always been careful to keep it hidden; he’d been so shy about it. It wasn’t until Washington got caught in the aftershock of a huge explosion and gotten some particularly jagged pieces of metal shrapnel stuck in his gut that the status quo changed for them.

_During surgery, he’d had to have both his armor and body suit removed in order for the medical team to actually fix him up properly, which naturally meant the entirety of his chest was naked and exposed while Maine watched anxiously from the observation window. When Wash had been moved from surgery to the Recovery ward and was allowed to receive visitors, Maine and Carolina were first ones to see him. He had told Maine before that his mark was on his chest, but not where and not what it said. He knew Maine had seen it when the bigger man reached over and drew a circle on his chest exactly where his soulmate mark resided. Carolina stopped fussing over him and went quiet as soon as Maine made the motion – she knew what was there too, and she and the Director were the only other people on the ship who did._

_Wash swallowed nervously and watched Maine whose expression was similarly anxious. There was a reason he’d never told Maine; he was so **sure** that his mark meant Maine, but what if he was wrong? Maine was quiet, but he was hardly the only one with that trait. He didn’t want to reveal his mark to Maine only to find out that no, Maine’s mark was meant for someone else, not him. As certain as he was that Maine **was** his ‘silence’, he didn’t want to find who was if it **wasn’t** Maine. He still loved him, soulmate or not._

_After a moment or two of awkward silence from Wash and nervous fidgeting from Maine, the bigger Freelancer started pulling the white armor off his left arm – just the left arm – then pulling off the glove and unzipping the black body suit of his left arm from his wrist down to his elbow. Wash only belatedly realized what Maine was doing just before he turned his left arm around for Wash to plainly see ‘support’, his soulmate mark, written along the length of his wrist. He stared transfixed at the word and slowly reached out for it. His fingers gently ghosted over the writing on Maine’s wrist and he looked up at him with wonder in his gray eyes. Maine’s word wasn’t any clearer than his, but he knew. He just **knew**. And Maine knew it too; he could see it in his brown eyes that were no longer worried, but compassionate and full of warm understanding. All this time… it really **was** him. It was there from day one, the quick, unexplainable attraction that just felt **right** , just like his mother had told him **so** so long ago._

_In the same slow and gentle way that he’d used to touch Maine’s soulmate mark, Washington sat up and reached out toward Maine’s face with the same hand. Maine sat down on the edge of the bed and lightly gripped Wash’s waist. He pulled him closer and Wash shifted his hand’s direction to instead grab Maine’s shoulder and help lessen the distance between them. They were pressed up against each other and but a breath’s distance apart when Wash made the first move. Maine was not as tall sitting down as he was standing, but there was still enough of a height difference between them that he had to pull up on his shoulder a little as he hooked his other hand around the back of Maine’s neck and pressed a light kiss to his lips. Maine responded back with a little more passion as he caught the back of Wash’s head with his free hand and entangled his fingers in his blond hair as he deepened the kiss even further. Kissing Maine like this... not even the knowledge that his sister was watching could ruin this. David had never felt so complete before in his life. Mom was right._

A gentle squeeze to his arm brought him out of his memory and back to reality where Maine was lying in bed next to him, staring at him with concern for the tears in his eyes while he stroked the mark on Maine’s left wrist.

Wash shook his head and smiled sadly in response. “No, it’s okay. I was just thinking for a moment. I dreamt about my mom last night.” Maine’s eyes softened further with this declaration and his other hand came up and rubbed the top of his head sympathetically. “Just a memory, one of the very few I have of her. It was Mom who explained the soulmate marks to me.”

()()()()()

_“Just a memory, one of the very few I have of her. It was Mom who explained the soulmate marks to me.”_

Things have changed so much since the early day of Project Freelancer when the enhancements were still new and undergoing testing. Washington is no longer the naïve dork of the team and he hasn’t been for years. There is no team now. He’s a single agent and he goes by Recovery One. His friends and loved ones are either dead or gone and he’s alone with only his father as his closest relation – not that their relationship is close by _any_ means. Not since Texas and the AI implantations and Epsilon. _Epsilon_. He couldn’t think of the AI that unraveled his mind as it died without feeling bitter, angry betrayal and a dull, throbbing ache in his chest.

Epsilon knew everything that the Director did to the Alpha AI and to its Freelancers, but Epsilon also had memories of Allison, his mother. Before the implantation, Washington had only a few memories of her, but now he had way too many and none of them were even his. He didn’t want to know his mother like this, through his father’s eyes, but he knew so _little_ and his father knew so _much_ ; was it wrong for him to miss his mother and miss that he never got the chance to know her? He was her son, it should be his born right. Still, it never failed to make him feel guilty every time he did give in and indulge in some of his father’s memories of Mom, knowing what had been done to enable him to see them at all. Knowing that Texas was sorta-Mom in a way never failed to confuse him and it made him wonder; did Carolina ever know who she was? Or was it _because_ she knew that she pushed herself so hard and ended up-? He couldn’t bear to finish the thought.

The past several weeks a year after the Human-Covenant War ended had left him busy. With the Red and Blue simulation troopers he was running around with while trying to hunt down the Meta, he had no time to dwell on memories, either his father’s or his own. He was too busy trying to stay alive and maybe find a way to get revenge against the Director for everyone he’d destroyed in his vain quest to bring Mom back to life. When he reached the basement of the Command center to set off the E.M.P., he heard his father’s voice directly for the first time in years and it made his blood boil to be having a conversation with the man who’d both created and then _ruined_ his life and so many others'. He didn’t stop to think about why the Director did what he did. He didn’t let himself think about the pain the Director went through when his mother, his father’s soulmate, was killed by the Insurrection. He didn’t think at all about how much he understood that same pain because while his own soulmate’s _body_ was still alive, the person he’d loved within it had died long ago.

It was his father’s fault he’d lost his soulmate in the first place!

He didn’t want to be here talking to his old man during what would probably be his final moments, but it felt so nice to know everything and gloat and be right for once in his goddamn life. It was nice to finally _win_ even if it killed him.

**“Well, then I am very sorry, Agent Washington, but Project Freelancer no longer has need of your services. Program, disable interior shield.”**

The shield shimmered and failed and Wash stared blankly at the Meta from across the room, unable to comprehend what was going on, what his father was doing. He was only able to utter a bewildered, “What?”

**“Agent Maine, please kill Agent Washington.”**

Wash froze in horror at the words. _The Director was willing to kill his own son just to continue his wretched research!_ He realized too late that the Meta had already brought out its pistol and was aiming directly at him. “No-!” he cried out as he reached for his own weapon, but the words died in his throat when the shot echoed across the room and the bullet penetrated his chest.

He collapsed to the floor in pain and grabbed at his side. The Meta stalked closer like a predator looming over its prey and Wash inched backward until his back was pressed against the terminal. Slowly, very slowly like the blood trickling out of his body, it filtered in through the pain that where the Meta had shot him was straight through the center of his soulmate mark, ‘silence’ encircling the new bullet wound, the first actual shot the Meta had ever landed on him.

**Author's Note:**

> I was craving several things that inspired this fic.
> 
> One. I headcanon Carwash siblings, so I wanted Allison being a mom to David.  
> Two. Mainewash is my second OTP for RvB and I wanted to write some sorta happy/sappy stuff.  
> The story would have ended right after the second point were it not for the next two things that I wanted to write.  
> Three. I wanted to write a bit of Wash having his father's memories of his mother after Epsilon.  
> Four. I wanted to write the last confrontation between Wash and the Meta and have the Meta shoot him straight through Wash's soulmate mark.
> 
> Little four-year-old David can't say "Carolina". It's too hard a word, hence why she is Caerina to him at that age. He completely dropped the 'ol' in her name.
> 
> Also, personal headcanon of mine from LONG before I accepted carwash siblings headcanon; we only know from the finale of Reconstruction that Dr. Church lost Allison early on in his life. He never said that she actually died in the Human-Covenant War, so it's very possible that she was killed during one of the many Insurrectionist terrorist attacks that were taking place right up to the start of war against the aliens.


End file.
